Selkie 606

Was going to use the standard cartoony hearts instead of the anatomical-ish one, but I thought that looked like it suggested Valentines Day, romance and etc. I like this approach more for conveying that pounding behind the ribcage.

Discussion (96) ¬

That’s what my mom did when she found out she was adopted. I was like “Oh hey, cool, more family, sweet.” It’s quite the shock. It must be even more so for her though, to have her show up like that after not having one.

I see a future scene of frustrated anger and tears that starts with her yelling at her mother and hitting her then just collapsing into sobs. The feeling of abandonment can last a lifetime.

My children were taken from me by my mother due to a difference of opinion on religion, (my mom didn’t like the fact that I changed my religion). My kids weren’t told that I tried repeatedly to get them back until they were out of my mother’s house.

Even though she knew that I didn’t actually abandon her, my oldest girl still had issues with the trauma from it. We wound up going to a con together and sharing a room some years later. At one point and I woke up early and decided to go down to artists alley to do some commission sketches.

My daughter near broke my heart as I was getting ready to go out the door with my art supplies in a bag. She woke up and confusedly looked at me and asked “Mom, are you leaving me?”

She was in her twenties by that time and knew everything my mother had put me through while I had tried to get them back but she was still afraid that I was going to abandon her again. I had to stop and explain what I had been about to do and reassure her that I wasn’t just leaving her at the con alone.

It still tears me apart that she was hurt so badly due to the fact that my mother is Christian and just couldn’t handle me changing from that. Since we were living in Oregon at the time in the heart of the O.C.A. (Oregon Christian Alliance) and I was single and living with my boyfriend, so she pretty much just got her church to persecute me and claim that I was living in an immoral fashion and she felt that I would be a bad influence on my children due to it.

Since I wasn’t Christian and I was (by her estimation) living in sin, with her churches help she destroyed three lives simply due to religious intolerance.

If I were with my mom in a hotel and she skipped out before I woke up, without leaving a note in plain sight (preferably taped to wall near door), if I woke up alone, then even as an adult I’d start to get a little panicky. Even if it’s reasonable that she might head downstairs for breakfast or something. I don’t know that trauma is necessary for that reaction.

Also, it sucks that you guys had to go through that. It seems so foreign to me to use Christianity to break up families — Family is one of the four laws established by God for humanity in general (Volition (free choice), Marriage, Family, Nations), and we’ve spent the past decade (nearly) fighting to keep a family together (my nephew’s mom and her four kids) or at least, if we can’t do that, to keep them in the family so they can eventually get back together with her.

Lots of people have told us to give up or distance ourselves from the situation, but because we’ve fought with the principle of family in mind, she’s now got two of her kids and the other two were adopted by family members instead of strangers. They’re in a rough situation right now (school bullying) but it’s only a few years to go before they can choose who to live with.

We’ve got our issues with their mom, but c’mon, kids should stay with their parents unless there’s active abuse going on. Religious differences aren’t an acceptable reason to tear them apart (and I say that as a person who believes that your beliefs in the area of religion are the most important aspect of your entire human existence).

Having some tertiary experience with things like CPS, it’s not so much that the justice system is corrupted by religious nutcases as it is easy to exploit by anyone with an agenda and a sufficient lack of moral fiber (or just wildly maldirected morality).

As a for-instance, a friend of mine had her children taken away on the basis of a complete fabrication and even once she was exonerated it still took forever to get them back because of how the system frantically tries to protect them from further disruption, attendant social factors and stigmas, etc.

The system is really easy to get moving, but it swiftly gets a hellish amount of inertia behind it and can do a lot of irreparable damage along the way when it’s abused.

That last line is a statement I can get behind, and from all the things Jesus said in the Gospels about religious hypocrites, I’m pretty sure he’s behind it too. Well, maybe not the “fuck them” part, though he’s not as meek and mild as some make him out to be (see the moneychangers scene, or the “whitewashed tombstones”).

Can I just say i find this community amazing? This has got to be the most sensible and, well, not idiotic discussion about any religion I’ve ever seen on the internet. Every time I see one of these kinds of conversations in the comments of say, youtube it’s just like “people, I don’t care what your religion is, you have to still have common sense!”

Coming from someone with extensive background in Christianity and a very deep and fundamental faith (I consider myself Christian first and human second), I can say that that is NOT what Christianity is. That is someone pridefully, self-righteously, viciously attacking another person.

I would consider living with someone you’re not married to to be immoral, even sinful, but sin is sin anyways, and the girl who tells a lie about where the brownies went is as much a sinner as the girl who sleeps with every guy she meets. Granted, some sins cause more damage to yourself and other people than other sins do, but I know several people who have sinned in that particular way, and under no circumstance do I condemn them or think of them as ‘less’ for their lapse.

Frankly, Gramy Pashakitty’s mother was not acting like a Christian. I won’t say she wasn’t one, because I can’t know her heart, but taking the kids like that was as much a sin as sleeping with a boyfriend. Maybe even worse, actually; Jesus and John the Baptist both called out hypocrites multiple times, very severely, which neither of them did to prostitutes and adulturesses (look up the woman at the well in Sychar if you want, John 4:1-26).

However, I do agree that Organized Religion (capitalized to distinguish it from religions where some meeting places have organization and affiliation with other meeting places) gives a lot of people a chance to give lip-service and think that that’s enough. In Iran right now, it’s all or nothing, and I think maybe the Church in the West suffers from a lack of opposition. No one has to choose between a cushy life and their religion, so we find a lot more ‘upstanding’ Christians who act like Gramy Pashakitty’s mother.

TL;DR version: I’m a Christian; I don’t condone this behavior in anyone, Christian or not; and I actually only know one person who’s like this (she makes me feel physically ill, by the way) out of all the Christian people I know.

Awful people do awful things. They do them in the name of religion, in the name of science, in the name of money, in the name of business, of law, of government, of country, of honor, of appearances, of love… but none of those are the real reason awful things happen. They happen because some people are awful. If all religion disappeared tomorrow, those awful people would simply find a new excuse to fuel their awfulness.

I don’t know exactly how double names work, but yeah, all my instincts are saying that’s a sucky attempt at one. You can barely pull off a four-syllable name regularly (mine’s Alethia, and I only claimed it as a teen after I realized that everybody was using a nickname to the point where nobody used my full name ever, and I really like Alethia). Who wants a five-syllable double name as their base identity? That’s when you hit nicknames and lose the point of the original name.

I’d say a three-syllable double name is normal: Mary Jane, Betty Sue, etc. And I think it probably happened that way because it gives a stronger cadence: It’s a masculine cadence, with the final syllable stressed, whereas most names for girls have feminine cadence, with the final syllable unstressed.

I think it being a sucky attempt at a double name is appropriate, though. Andi’s demonstrated a handicap at parenting in many ways, and not being able to create an appropriate name for her child fits with that whole profile. It also seems more artsy than pragmatic, which also fits.

Naw, it’s just fine as long as you pronounce the middle name correctly (not Mary, but Meer-EE). My mom’s side has a lot of girls with double names—though they’d often got shortened by everyone but my grandma. 🙂

I imagine it could be chalked up to ‘just wasn’t thinking’ on Andi’s part. I’m intrigued to see how Keisha handles ‘mom came back for Amanda’. Is this a violation of the “we’ll be adopted together” promise? or will Keisha be too heartsick over the drama with Heather and Amanda falling out to put up a fuss?

In general, fainting over anything is something that ought to be checked by a doctor later, just to make sure nothing’s going on in there. But fainting as a response to an extreme shock is not rare. Seems perfectly in keeping with what’s going on, especially as Amanda’s built up a huge amount of emotion around this one event and finally it has happened unexpectedly.

Psychological issues… well, yes. We already know she has those! But actually, a single episode of fainting is not that uncommon in healthy children and young adults. Causes can include hunger, fear, pain, anxiety, or, as here, an intense emotional shock. It usually happens while standing, and is often preceded by a sensation of warmth, nausea, lightheadedness, and visual grayout.

Happened to me once (I’d skipped breakfast and lunch), and I remember I never fully lost consciousness. My vision dimmed, my body slowly slumped to the ground, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. I was very embarrassed afterwards!

I have fainted three times in my life, each for different reasons, but each were preceded by a VERY specific set of sensations that echo the experiences of others I’ve spoken to. It’s quite a distinct feeling when you’re going to faint vs. throw up etc.

Funny, my faint/puke feels the same except if I throw water on my face I can stop the puking and if I elevate my feet I can stop the fainting. I never know whether to rush to a sink or put my feet in the air! I usually choose to stop the puke – lots of fun times cracking my head on bathroom fixtures as I black out though 🙁 Thankfully I don’t do either one often but my oh my won’t a future pregnancy be fun?!

Interesting, my experience with fainting was very different. I was extremely sick at the time, but had to get up to use the bathroom. My head felt like it was expanding like a balloon, and when I tried to stand up my vision went out like a camera shutter closing, and I was gone all at once.

A few years ago I was donating plasma twice a week for spare cash. On my first visit I didn’t really take the advice to eat before hand to heart. I sat in the chair, got drained out, went to the bathroom to pee, and as I was using the urinal everything went all white-out and I collapsed on the bathroom floor, pants around my ankles and leaking pee. I came to in a moment, managed to stand up zip up and stumble out the door. They had me lay down and sip gatorade until I was able to walk safely.

for me the only time i fainted, was in the Navy going to “A” School, it was the morning, and i had just sat up on the bunk-bed, then i stood up real quick… the next thing i know is one of my three roomies (4 to a room) sopping wet, and in the buff, was rolling me over so i wasn’t face-down on the concrete floor anymore… i had stood up so fast, that the G-Forces pulled all the blood out of my brain and i blacked out. my roomie said that he heard me groan something about “yeah, yeah, i gotta go pee” then a really loud “CRACK!!” as my skull hit the deck… i broke my nose, split both my upper and lower lip right to the center, banged up both knees and one of my wrists got twisted a bit. he said, that from what he saw as he came running out of the shower was that i had literally fallen just like a tree going “timber!”: perfectly straight all the way down… lemme tell you, i get out of bed/stand up REAL careful ever since that point in time…..

I fainted my first time a few months ago. I just finished working without sleep for 56 hours. Fortunately it was my night off. I walk in the house and close the door. I wake up much later, the dog licking my face and me laying down on the ground. My body couldn’t take it anymore and just shut down on me.

Geez, you’re lucky to have such a quick-reacting roomie! We had a girl SIQ in boot who fainted after coming out of a dead sleep and beating us all to attention when the watch called for an officer who had entered. She stood up so fast, she went right back down!

And aww, Keisha, this is gonna be hard on you too. (On the bright side, maybe this’ll prompt her to bond with some of the other kids – say, Georgie – over the “My best friends got adopted and things will never be the same again” thing)

I can see Amanda pushing for Andi to adopt Keisha along with her, but with Keisha knowing Amanda and possibly some of the events before she was sent to the orphanage I get the feeling she might take the high road and end up being fine with only Amanda being adopted. Though I think she would feel and act a bit differently if it were non-biologically related people trying to only adopt Amanda.

Not any stupider than some of the other names people give their kids. One woman wanted who delivered in the ER wanted to name her daughter “Ashley” but she had found a unique spelling on the bathroom wall… A-S-S-H-O-L-E. Only in New Orleans…

The vagaries of human nature know no bounds, so it could have happened, but…

Unless you were personally right there in the ER witnessing her asking for that spelling, I’d be wary of repeating funny stories about stupid names. All too often they turn out to be urban legends — with, when you think about it, racist overtones.

Well, for what its’ worth, several years ago I worked for a call center that processed credit card applications for one of the big banks and had the pleasure of speaking with a poor guy named “Shi’thayd” – which I thought was kinda cool until he spelled it. S-H-I-T-H-E-A-D.

And the only thing running through my head, as I read this is Phil Collin’s;
“So hold on, my heart,
Please tell her to be patient,
‘Cause there has never been a time,
That I’ve wanted something more, …

Hmm… I’m not sure why it’s doing that. My husband ran a check on his machine separately. We use different O/S and don’t share files except off our phones. It didn’t come up for either of us. Also the site looks clean. Maybe it’s your settings or they just had issues that day?

I feel so sad for Keisha. I wish it were possible for Andie to adopt both Amanda and Keisha but obviously she’s not in a mentally prepared enough mindset to adopt two kids. I really hope that, despite Keisha feeling left behind, she becomes happy for Amanda. I want her to get adopted soon too… although the older kids get, the less likely they are to be adopted… And even though this isn’t the case in this story/environment, African American children have the lowest adoption rates… it’s simply heart breaking.

It could go the other way, though, in a sense — that it would be good for Amanda’s stability to have her friend adopted with her? Probably something that we’re going to be on tenterhooks about for a while!

That would be an utterly adorable way to conclude her story without having Keisha end up with either Andi or Todd. And would allow the kids to rib each other about suddenly being aunt and niece and such 😀

I don’t know whether it’s reasonable but it’s the only reasonable solution I’ve seen offered so far.

Actually, Keisha’s technically not losing another friend to adoption. Andi isn’t *adopting* Amanda. She’s a biological parent who’s retrieving her child. Different process entirely (on many levels). But in a way, it may be harder than losing Amanda to adoption.

Yep. For example, from the very first time Amanda appeared in color she had Todd’s skin tone and eyes. https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie21/ (although the eyes weren’t always consistently drawn in color at that stage of the comic, I confess)

She almost had Todd’s hair color too but I thought that might be over-doing the similarities. Made her a redhead instead then when it came time to reveal Andi (https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie106/) I copied over Amanda’s hair color.

I’m just thinking of how all the *other* kids in the orphanage are going to respond to this. “My real parents are coming back for me soon! I know they are! It happened to Amanda, it’ll happen to me too!”

Antoine is also a college freshman. I think that they would want him to wait until he graduates before they would consider him. While that would not necessarily be the case for any natural born offspring, with the adoption process they can tend to be more stringent.